Wow! what a performance from Drew Langdon and Miles Jennings in their Outerlimits hull, Silverline, today - they won their 4th consecutive Cowes-Torquay-Cowes powerboat race - the 61st running of the most famous race in the world. The Easterly wind made for very challenging conditions. They completed the 193 nautical mile course in 3 hours seven minutes at an average speed 68mph. By comparison, they won the 2021 race in 2 hours 21 minutes at an average speed of 95mph - a new speed record.
The win now puts Miles Jennings on 6 CTC wins drawing equal with the late, great Fabio Buzzi at the top of the CTC race wins table. As well as winning the four races with Drew Langdon in Silverline, he was also part of Hannes Bohinc’s Wettpunkt.com team with Ed Williams-Hawkes when they won the 2003 and 2005 races.
The Exeter based crew quickly built up a big lead when their nearest challenger, the Italian based Tommy One - Maurizio Scchepici, Gareth Williams and Glynn Norvall - ran into problems right at the start of the race - at one point belching black smoke, so presumably engine related, and they retired.
The second boat home at Cowes was Team 25 Dragon - Robert Lockyer/Scott Younger. Such was the dominance of Silverline, that Team 25 Dragon were over half an hour behind, finishing the course in 3 hours thirty eight minutes at an average speed of 58mph. This boat won the 2017 CTC race when it was known as Halcyon Connect in the hands of Miles Dobson and James Sheppard.
The third placed boat was the classic Dry Martini - Nigel Hopcroft, Mike Bontoft and Michael Peet - a Cigarette hull powered by Chevrolet engines. Their time, 4 hours 12 minutes at an average speed of 50mph. Dry Martini was followed home by another classic raceboat - Uno Embassy - a Planatec hull also with Chevrolet power – who completed the race in 4 hours 30 minutes. Both Dry Martini and Uno Embassy were racing in the 1970's and previous winners of the CTC - in 1974 and 1975 respectively.
To view a selection of my photo's from today's race, please click on this link
https://www.facebook.com/RivieraGuy/...jqKzEGXouSHUKl
They were taken as the boats crossed Torbay from Paignton to Torquay.
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